Thank you Winter 2017 Judges!

WINTER 2017 JUDGES

JO ANN CALLIS (Artist and Educator CalArts)

Jo Anne Callis was born in Cincinnati and began teaching at CalArts in 1976. Her work has been exhibited at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Gallery Min, Tokyo and Rose Gallery here in Santa Monica. In 2009 a retrospective of her work, Woman Twirling, was presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Callis has received three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as many other awards and prizes.

PARIS CHONG (Curator and Gallery Manager Leica, Los Angeles)

Miss Chong has seventeen years of experience in curating, managing, and promoting fine art galleries and artists of every genre. Currently, Paris coordinates and curates all events/art shows at the flagship store in WEHO for artists such as Bruce Gilden, Danny Clinch, Julian Lennon, Lenny Kravitz, Ralph Gibson, Neal Preston and Eli Reed. She has represented galleries and artists at events such as: Photo LA, Photo SF, Paris Photo, Paris Photo, Los Angeles and The Palm Springs Photo Festival as well as representing Leica Gallery Los Angeles at Art Basel Miami and Paris Photo, France. She has reviewed portfolios for Farmani Gallery, Fresh Look and The Palm Springs Photo Festival. Paris’ love of art contributes to showcasing established and up and coming local and international artists. Paris is currently the Gallery Manager and Curator of Leica Gallery Los Angeles. She also ran Farmani Gallery and assisted The Robert Berman Gallery during Santa Monica Auctions. Miss Chong has seventeen years of experience in curating, managing, and promoting fine art galleries and artists of every genre.

Rachel joined Phillips in 2015 after eight years in the auction industry. She previously served as the Director of Photographs at Heritage Auctions, working with Photographs, Fine Art, and Historical collections around the United States and holding auctions in Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York. During her tenure, she brought numerous private and corporate collections to the photographs, modern, and contemporary markets. She has continued her growth in this role working closely with collectors and focusing on appraisals within the department. Most recently she managed the exhibition That Day: Laura Wilson, Pictures in the American West which was on view in New York from January – February 2017. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and previously held a position assisting the Registrar at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

SUMMER 2017 JUDGES

ELIZABETH HOUSTON (Owner and Director of Elizabeth Houston Gallery)

Elizabeth Houston is the owner and director of Elizabeth Houston Gallery in New York, NY. Elizabeth Houston Gallery opened in September 2015. The gallery was formerly know as Hous Projects and was founded in September 2007. Elizabeth Houston Gallery is based on a collaborative and inter-media approach. The gallery’s initiation to the contemporary scene imbues fresh voices from artists who work in the present and explore a cornucopia of facets. Furthermore, such artists are linked by a commitment to technical mastery as well as concept. Core artists are able to realize the fusion of these ideals with the support of Elizabeth Houston Gallery and our commitment to bringing their work to exhibitions both home and abroad. The gallery has exhibited with AIPAD, Volta New York, PULSE New York, PHOTOLA, Scope Basel and Zona Maco. Elizabeth Houston Gallery has met success with collectors and critics alike and been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, The Huffington Post and The New York Times amongst others. In our eighth year, we look forward to continuing with our stable of artists as well as debuting talent in photography as well as other mediums in New York.

In addition to her work with Elizabeth Houston Gallery, Elizabeth Houston has participated as a juror for various portfolio reviews and exhibitions including International Center of Photography, Review Santa Fe, Photo Lucida, Fotofest and Critical Mass and Women in Photography.

MATT STROMBERG ( Freelance Arts Writer )

Matt Stromberg is a freelance arts writer based in Los Angeles. He has contributed to Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, The Guardian, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Hyperallergic, Artsy, Frieze, and Daily Serving, and has written catalogue essays as well as artist profiles for the book LA Artland (2005).

EFREM ZELONY-MINDELL (Curator, writer and painter)

Efrem Zelony-Mindell is a curator, writer, and painter. His curatorial endeavors include shows in NYC: n e w f l e s h and Are You Loathsome. He writes about art and photography for DEAR DAVE magazine, Posture Magazine, VICE, HuffPost, Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, Mossless, L’Oeil de la Photographie, and aCurator. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

WINTER 2016 JUDGES

CHARLOTTE COTTON (Independent Curator and Writer)

Charlotte Cotton is an independent curator and writer. She is currently curator in residence at the International Center of Photography, NY and the Metabolic Studio, LA. She has held positions including curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, head of programming at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, and head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is the author of ‘The Photograph as Contemporary Art’. Her most recent exhibition was ‘Public, Private, Secret’, which opened the ICP’s new 250 Bowery exhibition and event space in June 2016. Her most recent book, ‘Photography is Magic’ (2015) surveys the practices of eighty-five contemporary artists that are reshaping the idea of photography.

Nicholas Fahey is a Los Angeles native whose roots are deep in the area's fine art photography community. Fahey grew up in the Fahey/Klein Gallery participating in installations while watching the fine art careers of photographers like Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber mature as artists before his young eyes. While continuing to work in fine art photography galleries producing exhibitions throughout the coast of California he completed a degree in photography. He then returned to LA where he quickly received work shooting for magazines, catalogs and other clients. He has also done photographic work for such prestigious organizations as Parson's, where his original photographic style was used to document their charity work all throughout greater Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited at fine art organizations in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Fahey also spent several years traveling the Arctic with photographer Howard Ruby documenting the plight of the polar bear. In 2007 Nicholas and Andrea Bell founded Glitterati Media Inc. He now spends his time creating living photography, curating contemporary exhibitions for the Fahey/Klein gallery and publishing Glitterati Magazine while developing his photographic portfolio He looks forward to participating in the creation of visual content and helping to advance the future of media.

WENDY POSNER (Posner Fine Art , contemporary fine art consultant )

Wendy Posner is an influential contemporary fine art consultant in the Los Angeles. She is the owner of Posner Fine Art, a full-service international art enterprise that focuses on acquisitions, commissions, curation and installation of art collections for both private and corporate clients.

Posner was born and raised near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where her mother Judith started the historically important Posner Art Gallery in 1960. Wendy grew up in the art business, surrounded by modern and contemporary art, ethnic artifacts, and vintage collectibles, and she socialized with artists, museum curators, gallerists and collectors. After graduating from Boston University she relocated to Los Angeles, her current home, and has been dealing art for more than 25 years.

PAST FOCUS photo l.a. JUDGES

EVA CHIMENTO(Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles)

Eva Chimento opened Chimento Contemporary in the fall of 2015. After working as an arts professional in Los Angeles for the last 24 years, she wanted to exhibit to a range of artists concentrating on established and mid-career artist who live and work in Los Angeles.

SOO KIM (Photographer, Program Director of Photography)

Soo Kim’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Angles Gallery, Los Angeles; Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles; Julie Saul Gallery, New York; The Pasadena Museum of California Art; and the Pomona College Museum of Art.

Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Getty Center, Los Angeles; The 2002 Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina; the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Art Sonje, Korea; Islip Art Museum, New York; the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, New York; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Kim’s work is in the public collections of The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Broad Foundation, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, North Carolina Museum of Art, and The Escalette Collection of Art, Chapman University.

Currently she is Professor and Program Director of Photography, and heads the Critic-in-Residence program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

JOANNA SZUPINSKA - MYERS (Curator of Exhibitions at the California Museum of Photography)

Joanna Szupinska-Myers is Curator of Exhibitions at the California Museum of Photography, part of UCR ARTSblock in Riverside, since January 2013. Previously she was Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2011-12. She earned her MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and her BA in Art at University of California, Los Angeles.

JUSTIN FISET (Art Photography Advisor)Justin Fiset has worked for nearly a decade advising on and managing photography collections in the Los Angeles area. His photography has been shown and published internationally.

SARAH LEE(Art Photography Dealer)Sarah Lee ran "Sarah Lee Artworks &Projects" gallery at Bergamot Station specializing Japanese and Korean photography for 14 years. She now is a private dealer and consultant.

EVE SCHILLO(Curatorial Assistant, Wallis Annenberg Photography Dept, LACMA)Eve Schillo has worked on numerous exhibitions in her 15+ years with LACMA, ranging from Cuban photography after the revolution, multi-media work by author/artist William S. Burroughs, a self-portraiture series culled from the Irmas Collection, and still and moving imagery by California-based Katy Grannan and Charlie White. More current exhibitions she contributed to, along with their accompanying catalogues, include Larry Sultan: Here & Home, John Divola: As Far As I Could Get and See the Light–Photography, Perception, Cognition: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. She continues to curate exhibits highlighting the permanent collection for multi-media galleries dedicated to American, Latin American, Modern, Contemporary and Japanese Art, spanning photographic history. Recent exhibitions beyond LACMA include Road Trip: Photography of the American West, an exchange between sister cities Los Angeles and Bordeaux.

SHANA NYS DAMBROT(Art Critic, Author)Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Los Angeles. She is currently LA Editor for Whitehot Magazine, Arts Editor for Vs. Magazine, Contributing Editor to Art Ltd., and a contributor to the LA Weekly, Flaunt, Huffington Post, Palm Springs Life, and KCET’s Artbound. She studied Art History at Vassar College, writes loads of essays for art books and exhibition catalogs, curates one or two exhibitions each year, recently published her first work of short fiction, exhibits photography, and speaks in public with alarming frequency. An account of her activities is sometimes updated at sndx.net.

CAT JIMENEZ(Executive Director of the Lucie Foundation)Cat Jimenez is the Executive Director of the Lucie Foundation, a position she has held since 2005. The Lucie Foundation's mission is three tiered: to honor master photographers; to discover and cultivate emerging talent; and to promote the appreciation of photography through various programs, which Jimenez has spearheaded during her tenure. Cat Jimenez is also the founder of Edition One Hundred, an online art gallery providing beautifully packaged and produced art and photography at prices within reach.

HANNAH SLOAN (Gallerist)Hannah Sloan started SLOAN PROJECTS in 2015. Before this new venture, she was a director at ROSEGALLERY for over 10 years - an internationally renowned gallery of photography and works on paper. In addition to advising private collectors and museums Hannah independently funds and curates ambitious art installations and is the chief curator and exhibition coordinator for the Motion Picture & Television Fund. SLOAN PROJECTS will combine Hannah's expertise in the art market with her love for installation and innovative display through highly focused, thematic exhibitions and a personalized approach to art advising.